


chained to the sky, come down to the sea

by TheTartWitch



Series: One-shots of AUs [18]
Category: Mulan (1998)
Genre: Alternate Universe - people have Talents, Aromantic Ping, Asexual Ping, BAMF Ping, Carefree Shang, F/M, Fa family doesn't care for nobles, I'm not sure where this is set, M/M, Older!Ping, Ping has bird tattoos, Younger!Shang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-27 08:25:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9985214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTartWitch/pseuds/TheTartWitch
Summary: When the leader of the soldiers approaches his father in the hopes of hiring the Fa family’s unusually strong talents as bodyguards, Ping is sitting at the table. His grandmother’s space, to his right, is empty.“Some nobles’ festival,” his father dismisses, “and because we’re so close to the border they think to hire excessive protection. Capital foolishness.”Ping’s grandmother hasn’t left their kitchens. She’s attempting to muffle her laughter before she’s forced to confront the nobles’ trained guards; she isn’t succeeding.





	

**Author's Note:**

> There is no Mulan here, there is only Ping!!

It starts slowly, like creeping vines on the estate’s wall. Soldiers begin sleeping and living in small camps around the village; noblewomen and their husbands rent rooms in the better villas. Servants begin appearing in the markets on behalf of their masters, and Ping’s father reminds him to stay out of view. The higher class aren’t always so forgiving of the lower class’ gifted. His mother purses her lips and says nothing, but his grandmother cackles silently when he glances her way. 

“Don’t worry about this one, son,” she’d smirked. “The boy’s taste for adventure is about the same as his desire for a wife or husband: non-existent!” Zhou had flushed lightly at his mother’s words, but kept a stern eye on his son. 

The weeks passed quietly into summer this way.

\--

Messengers visited the larger and more opulent of the peasant estates, and the Fa family was no exception. Ping often watched the other villagers’ children, and as he was herding them towards the pond one evening a figure riding horseback and two guards made their way up the stone road. All the children went still, folding their palms and bowing from the waist to the horsemen, but Ping didn’t move. He owed no respect to these invaders, and his family owed no allegiance to this nobleman nor his family.

The man seemed curious but not offended when he asked after the Fa family’s estate, and while Ping pointed, he said nothing to encourage or dissuade the man as he rode past.

\--

Ping always wore long sleeves to hide his tattoos and a scarf around his head to hide his feline eyes. It made strangers tense and fidget when he fixed them with his stare. His father said the level of scrutiny from the eyes of a predator made them wary of him. Ping’s grandmother said it was because they were weak, and he was not.

When the leader of the soldiers approaches his father in the hopes of hiring the Fa family’s unusually strong talents as bodyguards, Ping is sitting at the table. His grandmother’s space, to his right, is empty. 

“Some nobles’ festival,” his father dismisses, “and because we’re so close to the border they think to hire excessive protection. Capital foolishness.” 

Ping says nothing. His mother sits stiffly, and across from them the army’s commander sits  _ very  _ stiffly. He’s the horseman Ping met on the streets, and apparently remembers the young adult in the scarf and long sleeves. Ping doesn’t think the man even knows how to address Ping; with his concealing clothing and lack of voice, Ping is wonderfully androgynous. 

Ping’s grandmother hasn’t left their kitchens. She’s attempting to muffle her laughter before she’s forced to confront the nobles’ trained guards; she isn’t succeeding.

\--

Ping is quiet. He prefers not to speak, simply because being silent is so much easier than saying anything at all. Life is peaceful in the mountains. 

Unfortunately, these soldiers don’t seem to grasp that. At least seven have attempted to sneak a hand up the back of his robes; he’s demonstrated why no one’s ever managed to get much farther than an attempt soon after each, leaving soldiers laying prone in the dust of the unused fields they’re camping on. The commander raises an eyebrow, but makes no move to help the men up. They slink off sheepishly back to their fires and jeering friends. Several blow Ping kisses; he stares back, tempted to remove his scarf, until they become unnerved and look away. They continue on. 

In a tent in the central area is the commander’s young son, Li Shang. He studies Ping with the fascination Scholars of the Talent often do, and makes a motion to push Ping’s scarf out of his face. Ping nudges his hand away, scowling.

“I see just fine with it on, young one,” he murmurs dismissively, and the commander’s head swivels towards him, staring reproachfully at his son. 

“A man, then…?” The commander’s face reddens. “I don’t mean to assume, I just…”

“Couldn’t tell,” Ping finishes for him. “Yes, Commander, I am a man.”

Li Shang looks as though his yearly celebration has come early. “A Talented One, Father?”

The commander seems very close to breathing into his palms. “Yes, Shang. Do remember your manners.”

\--

To hire him, the army desired a demonstration of his skills. Ping led them outside, to a grassy field with no tents interrupting its horizon, and calmly untied the front of his short jacket with the wide sleeves that more than covered him. When that was gone, he stood before them in long pants and a skin-tight dancer’s shirt. 

On his arms his skin had darkened in the pattern of birds, so many kinds and sizes and shapes, wings open and beak extended, wings shut and talons grasping at another bird’s neck. Ping stepped out silently, his soft shoes making hardly any sound against the green earth. From behind him, Ping could hear Shang’s high voice saying something about muscles, and the commander answering in a tight, uncomfortable tone. Ping smirks, unseen.

Then he spreads his arms, and his flock flaps its way from his bones into the day’s air.

\--

Some of his birds cannot fly, and so they stamp at the earth and nudge his side before stalking the soldiers daring enough to approach. Ping stands among them, feathers drifting into his hair and feline eyes glittering in the eye of the storm. Shang is laughing like a lunatic, running through the full air as though the wind from Ping’s birds will lift him as well if he just goes fast enough. 

With his head up so high, watching the sky and not where he is going, Shang runs right into him. Ping catches him easily and steadies him, cat’s-eyes studying him.

“In three years,” Shang says, earnest and loud and unafraid, “I will be an adult, and I will come back. I will ask you to marry me.” This is said with the tone of the matter-of-fact, as though Shang’s proposal has always been expected and simply hadn’t left the boy’s mouth yet. 

“For power?” Asks Ping. “For my strength in battle?” He has been approached for this before, seen as a tool or a weapon, and he will not fight any fight, not even the good one, for someone who does not love him with or without his birds. The root of his Talent lies in his freedom; take it away, and his birds become caged pets, no longer wild or beautiful. Docile, tamed, strange.

“No,” says Shang, nose wrinkling. Ping snorts to keep from laughing. “For your muscles. For your scarf. For the way you put men into the ground for touching without your permission.”

Ping almost blushes. He hadn’t known Shang had seen that.

“And,” says Shang, eyes tracking the flush climbing Ping’s cheekbones. “And, because you are a beautiful person, even if you don’t know it.”

**Author's Note:**

> I literally have no idea. This is my muse's word vomit into my head. Any questions?


End file.
